Secrecy of European Election Results
Deputy FitzGerald warned that the European agreement required ballot boxes to remain unopened until polls closed across member states; the Chair ended the exchange before the Minister gave a substantive reply.
In view of the Minister's non-denial of what has been said about a circular suggesting that votes for the European elections be checked face upwards, is he aware of the nature of the agreement reached at the European Council, at which I personally participated, that a condition of the elections being held over a period of days in different countries was that the boxes containing the European votes would not be opened so that there would be no danger that any assessment of the results would come out in one country in advance of others which could pre-judge the result of the election in other countries? Is the Minister aware, that it was on a proposal by this country that that procedure be adopted that other countries accepted in good faith the idea of the elections being held over a period of days and agreed that we, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom would hold our elections on Thursday, three days earlier? If it is proposed to allow these votes to be checked face upwards, this would be a serious breach of faith vis-à-vis our partners in the European Community because the tally men would produce results which could affect elections elsewhere. We guaranteed that that would not happen and it was on that condition we were allowed to have the election on Thursday. Would the Minister please investigate the matter further in the light of that?
